“Today’s update is just one of the ways we’re working to make Direct the best place to have fun, visual conversations with friends on Instagram,” a blog post from Instagram said.

“When a friend replies to your story with a photo or a video, you’ll see it in your inbox. You can tap to view it and also see a sticker of the original story that’s only visible to you.”

The feature will be introduced to users on both iOS and Android, beginning today, Instagram said.

Facebook has been aggressively targeting rival social media app Snapchat in recent months with consistent updates to its family of apps – which also includes Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp – with many of the upgrades offering similar features to those that have made Snapchat popular with teenage smartphone users.

However, the tactic has so far worked for Instagram, which reported last month that Stories was being used daily by 250 million people, surpassing the 166 million people in total who use Snapchat.

Snapchat’s parent company Snap recently launched its first piece of hardware – video recording sunglasses called Spectacles – in the UK.

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